Innocent Graves (48 page)

Clayton looked from Gristhorpe to Banks. “Yes,” he said to the latter. “I told you it was absurd then, and it’s still absurd now.”

“I know.”

Clayton swallowed. “What?”

“I said I know it’s absurd.”

He shook his head. “So you’re not still trying to accuse me of that? Then why …?”

“And remember I suggested that Deborah might have gained access to some sensitive business material, or some government secret?”

“Yes. Again, ridiculous.”

“You’re absolutely right. You weren’t having an affair with Sylvie Harrison,” Banks said slowly, “and Deborah didn’t gain access to
any important government secrets. We know that now. I got it all wrong. You were in love with your goddaughter, with Deborah. That’s why you killed her.”

Clayton paled. “This … this is ludicrous.” He twisted around in his chair to look at Riddle. “Look, Jerry, I don’t know what they’re talking about. You’re their superior. Can’t you do something?”

Riddle, who had read both the diary and the computer journal, shook his head slowly. “Best answer the questions truthfully, Michael. That’s best for all of us.”

While Clayton was staring open-mouthed at Riddle’s betrayal, Superintendent Gristhorpe dropped the printed computer journal on the table in front of him. Clayton first glanced at it, then put his glasses on, picked it up and read a few paragraphs. Then he pushed it aside. “What on earth is that?” he asked Banks.

“The product of a sick mind, I’d say,” Banks answered.

“I hope you’re not suggesting it has anything to do with me.”

Banks leaned forward suddenly, snatched back the pages and slapped them down on the table. “Oh, stop mucking us about. It came from
your
computer. The one John Spinks stole that day he took your car. He’s already told us all about that, about how he saw Deborah make a copy of the files onto a diskette. You didn’t know about that, did you?”

“I … where …?”

“She kept it well hidden. Look, you know it’s your journal. Don’t deny it.”

Even in his shock, Clayton managed a thin smile and rallied his defences. “Deny it? I most certainly do. And I’m afraid you’ll have a hard job proving a wild accusation like that. Your suggestions are outrageous.” He glanced back at Riddle. “And Jerry knows it, too. There’s absolutely nothing to link that printout with me. It could have been written by anyone.”

“I don’t think so,” said Banks. “Oh, I know that Deborah reformatted your hard drive well beyond anything an ‘unerase’ or ‘undelete’ command could bring back to life, but you must admit the contents of the journal, the circumstances, all point to you. Very damning.”

“Fiction,” said Clayton. “Pure fiction and fantasy. Just some poor
lovestruck fool making things up. There’s nothing illegal in that. There’s no law against fantasies; at least not yet.”

“Maybe not,” said Banks. “We never checked Deborah’s clothing for
your
hairs, you know.”

“So?”

“You might not have left any blood or tissue, but I’m willing to bet that if we went over the hair samples again now, we’d find a positive match. That wouldn’t be fantasy, would it?”

Clayton shrugged. “So what? It wouldn’t surprise me. Deborah was my goddaughter, after all. We spent a lot of time together—as a family. Besides, I was in court for the so-called expert’s testimony. Hairs hardly prove a thing scientifically.”

“What about Ellen Gilchrist?”

“Never heard of—wait a minute, isn’t that the other girl who was killed?”

“Yes. What if we found
your
hairs on her clothing, too, and hers on yours? Was she family, a friend?”

Clayton licked his lips. “I never saw her in my life. Look, I don’t know what grounds you’ve got for assuming this, but—”

Banks dropped a photocopy of Deborah’s diary in front of him. “Read this,” he said.

Clayton read.

His hands were shaking when he put the diary down. “Fantasy,” he said, straining to keep his voice steady. “That’s not very much to go on, is it? It could be anyone.”

“Come on, Michael,” said Banks. “It’s all over. Admit it. You know what happened. You’ve just read her account. Deborah read your journal and found out you’d been secretly lusting after her since she was twelve. She was both shocked and excited by the idea. But only by the idea. She was flattered, but still too much of a kid to know how serious it all was to you. And she had a bit of a crush on you anyway. So she teased you, made up a bit of romance, flirted a little, the way young girls sometimes do to tease boys they know fancy them. Didn’t she, Michael?”

“This is absurd. You’re not only insulting me you’re also besmirching my goddaughter’s memory.” He looked around at Riddle again. “Sir Geoff—”
But Banks cut him off. “Besmirching? That’s a good word, Michael. I like that.
Besmirching
. Sounds naughty. Very public school. So let’s talk about
besmirching
. Eventually, when it became clear you wouldn’t leave her alone, Deborah threatened to tell her father. You knew that if Sir Geoffrey found out he would probably kill you. At the very least it would mean the end of your business relationship. That meant a lot to you, didn’t it, Michael? The two old Oxford boys, still together after all these years. Sir Geoffrey’s friendship meant a lot to you, too, but it didn’t stop you lusting after his twelve-year-old daughter, a girl who wasn’t even born when the two of you first met.”

Clayton glared, the colour drained from his face. “You’ll regret this,” he said, glancing at both Gristhorpe and Riddle. “All of you will, if you don’t stop this right now.” Banks could almost hear Clayton’s teeth grinding together. Gristhorpe said nothing. Riddle polished his buttons with a virgin white handkerchief.

“You waited for Deborah in St Mary’s graveyard,” Banks continued calmly, “in the shrubbery that foggy Monday evening when you knew she would be walking home alone from the chess club. You were going to grab her and drag her into the bushes, but when you saw her take the gravel path, you followed her towards the Inchcliffe Mausoleum, where you snatched her satchel and strangled her with the strap. Maybe she knew it was you, and maybe she didn’t. Maybe you talked first, tried to persuade her not to say anything, or maybe you didn’t. But that’s what happened, isn’t it, Michael?”

“I’m saying nothing.”

“You didn’t know she was going to pick up the diary she’d been keeping and hiding ever since summer, did you? Oh, Michael, but if you’d only been patient, given her a few more seconds, she would have led you straight to it and you probably wouldn’t be here now. Isn’t that how it happened?”

“I won’t even dignify your accusation with a response.”

“When she told you she’d read your computer journal, Deborah didn’t tell you that she’d copied the file about her onto a diskette, did she? But you knew she had a diary at one time. You bought it for her. That’s another irony, isn’t it, Michael? You knew she’d told
Sylvie she lost it, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you had a good look around her room after you killed her. After all, you had your own key to Sir Geoffrey’s house, and he and Lady Harrison were out. Even if they came back and found you there, it wouldn’t have surprised them. And you opened Deborah’s school satchel, too, didn’t you, to see if she kept anything incriminating in there. Just in case. The only place you couldn’t really get access to was her school desk, but you reasoned she’d be unlikely to keep anything important or private there.”

Clayton put his hands over his ears. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “I don’t have to listen to this. You’ll never be able to prove anything. I want—”

“Now, I’m only guessing,” Banks went on, “so stop me if I’m wrong, but I also think, as you murdered Deborah, that you found out you liked it. It stimulated you. Maybe you even had an orgasm as you tightened the strap around her neck. I know you were far too clever to actually rape her because you know about DNA and all that, don’t you? But you did mess around with her clothing after you killed her—partly for pure pleasure, I’d guess, and partly to make it look like a genuine sex murder.

“It was the same with Ellen Gilchrist, wasn’t it? You’d been over and over it in your mind all week, planning how you’d kill again, anticipating the intimacy of it all, and when you did it, when you felt the strap tightening, pulling her back against you, feeling her soft flesh rubbing against you, that excited you, didn’t it?”

“Really, Banks,” Chief Constable Riddle cut in from behind. “Don’t you think this is getting a little out of hand?”

Clayton turned and looked at Riddle, a cruel smile on his thin lips. “Well, thank you, Jerry, for all your support. You’re absolutely right. He’s talking rubbish, of course. I’d never even met the girl.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Banks went on, mentally kicking Riddle and trying to ignore his interruption. “Unlike Deborah, Ellen Gilchrist was a random victim. Wrong place, wrong time. You got lucky when Owen Pierce was arrested for the murder of Deborah Harrison, didn’t you? You thought he would get convicted, sentenced and that would be an end to it. But when the trial was nearing its close, you started to worry that he might get off. The
defence was good, the prosecution had only circumstantial evidence, and you’d heard rumours about evidence that would have convicted Pierce for certain had it been admissible. But you saw it all slipping away, and the focus perhaps shifting back towards you. So you went to Owen Pierce’s house while the jury was deliberating, and you either found the door open from a previous break-in, or you broke in yourself and made it look like vandals. It doesn’t really matter which. You took some hairs from Owen’s pillow, and you stole an open film container which you guessed would have his fingerprints on it. You set out to deliberately frame Owen Pierce for the murder of Ellen Gilchrist, knowing we’d also put Deborah’s murder down to him, too, and close the file on both of them. But, you know what? I think you also
enjoyed
it. Just the way you did with Deborah. And I think there would have been more if we hadn’t caught you, wouldn’t there? You’ve developed a taste for it.”

“This is insane,” Clayton said. “And you can’t prove a thing.”

“Oh, I think we can,” Banks went on. “Look what we proved against Owen Pierce, and he didn’t even do anything.”

Clayton smiled. “Ah, but he got off, didn’t he?”

Banks paused. “Yes. Yes, he did. But maybe you should talk to him about that. I’m sure he’d be very interested to meet you. Getting off isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in some cases. See, maybe you’re right, Michael. Maybe we won’t be able to convince a jury that a fine, upstanding citizen like yourself murdered two young girls. Perhaps even with the evidence of the journal and the diary and the hairs, if we find they match, we won’t be able to prove it to them. But you know who
will
believe us, don’t you, Michael? You know who knows quite well who ‘Uncle Michael’ is, who knows what Montclair is and that there are no locks on the bathroom doors there. You know exactly who
will
know who is the writer and who’s the subject. Sir Geoffrey will know. And you’ll have gained nothing. In some ways, I think I’d rather take my chances with a jury, or even go to jail, than incur the wrath of Sir Geoffrey over such a matter as the murder of his only daughter by the man he’s trusted for more than twenty years, don’t you?”

Clayton said nothing for a moment, then he croaked, “I want
my solicitor. Now. Get my solicitor, right now. I’m not saying another word.”

Bloody hell, thought Banks, here we go again. He called in the constable from outside the interview room. “Take him down to the custody suite, will you, Wigmore. And make sure you let him call his lawyer.”

VI

Owen sat in the Nag’s Head nursing his second pint and Scotch chaser, trying to pluck up the courage to go over the road and see Rebecca and Daniel. The problem was, he felt ashamed to face them. They had believed in his innocence, and he had let them down badly. He knew that if there were to be any sort of salvation or reclamation in this business at all, he would have to tell them the whole truth, including what he had done to Michelle. And he didn’t know if he could do that right now. He could hardly even admit to himself that he had become exactly what everyone thought he was: a murderer.

He looked around at the uninspiring decor of the pub and wondered what the hell he was doing here again. It had seemed a nice irony when he saw the sign over the bridge—full circle—but now it didn’t seem like such a good idea.

The Nag’s Head was boisterous, with the landlord entertaining a group of cronies with dirty jokes around the bar and tables full of couples laughing and groups of underage kids who’d had a bit too much.

He didn’t know what he was going to do after he finished his drinks: either go home and meet the police, or have another and go face Rebecca and Daniel. More drink wouldn’t help with that, though, he realized. He would feel less like facing them if he were drunk. Best drink up and turn himself in, then, return to the custody suite, where he should feel quite at home by now.

“What did you say?”

Owen looked up at the sound of the voice. There was a lull in the conversation and laughter. The landlord was collecting empty
glasses. He stood over Owen’s table. “Sorry mate,” he said. “I thought I heard you say something.”

Owen shook his head. He realized he must have been muttering to himself. He turned away from the landlord’s scrutiny. He could still feel the man looking at him, though, recognition struggling to come to the surface. He had a couple of days’ growth, a few more pounds around the waist from lack of exercise and a prison pallor, but other than that he didn’t look too different from the person who had sat alone in that same pub one foggy night last November.

Best finish his drinks and leave, he decided, tossing back the Scotch in one and washing it down with beer.

Then, all of a sudden, the landlord said, “Bloody hell, it
is
him! I don’t bloody believe it. The nerve.”

The men at the bar turned as one to look at Owen.

“It’s him,” the landlord repeated. “The one who was in here that night. The one who murdered those two young lasses.”